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Why Does Manga Succeed Where American Comics Fail?
Otaku_0245 writes "I read a really interesting article at slushfactory.com entitled 'Why Does Manga Succeed Where American Comics Fail?' discussing/comparing the comics industries in Japan and the US. It's basically a 3-way conversation including Frederik Schodt (author of 'Dreamland Japan' - one of my favorite books about Japanese pop culture), and very thought-provoking."
I don't think so. I live in Tokyo (lived in Japan for 3 years now) and I can tell you three things for sure:
1) EVERYONE here reads manga. EVERYONE.
2) A lot of the art sucks. People here don't read for the art (generally). They read for the stories. Um...pron excluded.
3) I've read several manga series, and I have to tell you that most of them are totally uninteresting (at least to me) yet my Japanese friends love them (e.g., a manga about a soccer player). And most of them are NOT sci-fi.
It's worth mentioning that here in France there is a very big market for manga-style comic books read by adults and teens - most book stores have big shelves of these comics. Japanese manga and anime is also available and relatively popular. The same situation also exists in Germany and Italy - Japanese manga is very popular in these countries. English-speaking countries really seem to be the exception here in that in these countries manga is virtually unknown and comic books are seen as inferior to text-only books.
and they suck because American comics are considered as childish, dumb and cheap. Honestly, I don't know why but I'm sure some people have theories.
So the whole business is seen as unattractive and people buying them are labbelled as dorks. Go to a Borders or BN and ask for the "Graphic Novels" Section, you will see the look they give you.
In Europe, comics are an art form. It's big business and therefore it attracts lots of creative people like writers and graphic artists. So there is some pretty strong competition going on.
There're books for every age but there're all pretty good. Usually, parents read comics too, so they can detect crap quite easily.
Also, it takes a lot more work to produce a volume. Profilic artists release two or three books PER YEAR. Books are also a lot more expensive (goes from $8 to $20), bigger (A4 is the norm), with a good paper quality and a hardcover. Such a book usually survives for 30 years.
I own a few american comics : the first Alien VS Predator, some Star Wars stuff... The stories, the graphics, the colors can't compare to some middle-quality european comics.
Of course, we do have our fair share of garbage too. Stories running for 20 books (at $12 at pop).. Computer generate drawings...
Finally, anecdotal evidence makes me think that the talent is there (the absolutely amazing Strangers In Paradise serie (www.strangersinparadise.com), strip comics, Will Eisner (The Spirit and some other books), movies...), but it isn't promoted.
Anyway, Europe's situation 50 years ago was similar to the US' situation today, so there is hope.
Nobox: Only simple products.
My god, you haven't looked at newsstands in a LOOOONG time.
If you are not in a big city where we have real newsstands, or aren't near an airport where fake newsstands inhabit, go into any supermarket or drugstore and look at the newspaper / magazine aisle. Chances are, you won't find any comics, or you will only find children's comics that are badly out of date. MAD is still there, yes, but the serial comic book has fallen greatly from it's 1950's high point of accessability. These days if you want a comic book, you really do have to go to a comic book store or a hip music joint.
Now trashy romance novels: *Those* are on every newsstand.
The ______ Agenda
Everyone should check out the Seven Myths about Literacy in the United States. Turns out that the perception of American literacy rates rapidly sliding downhill is largely due to (surprise surprise) media frenzy.
But I guess the hackneyed old tradition of U.S. bashing is still in vogue. Will it ever go out of style?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Also, hentai is the sickest thing around. Seriously, what kind of warped people think up tentacle rape porn, and then proceed to actually DRAW it, frame by frame?
What kind of people dream up dripping candel wax on tied up people? or using toturing devices in love making? What kind of people would think of using the rectum for sex? What kind of people would then go and draw them cell by cell / page by page?
Different people from different culture may get off from differnt things. What one finds as the norm may be seen as sickening by someone with a different prespective. Granted, some fantasies may be more disturbing then others, but I don't have a problem with people expressing themselves through drawing, sculpturing or other forms creation.
Having said that, the term "hen tai", literally "changed behavior", translats to "pervert/perverted/perversion". That should hint you off what those would contain.
But the Marquis De Sade, who lived in france in the time leading up the the french revolution, and during it, was a worse sicko than most people would ever think of. He is where we get the term "sadist" from. Frankly there is a large subculture around the world that goes for rectal penetration, candle wax, and alot worse (electrocution, beastiality, necrophelia to name a few).
Some hentai caters to these people.
As far as the "tentacle monster" genre, there is a reason for that. There is a censor group in japan that deemed that A) you can't show pubic hair, and B) you can't show penises. To get around these censors the artists removed pubic hair (which had the effect of making the characters looks younger, although japanese women tend to look young in the first place), and rather than having a man having sex with these women, they used phallic replacements..and thus was born the tentacle monster.
For a good analysis of this, listen to the commentary track on the La Blue Girl Returns DVD (unfortunately priced very high).
RoundTop
Japan has a higher literacy rate than the US - despite their writing system.
Hiragana is taught to kids first, and doesn't contain that many more unique characters than our own 26 letter alphabet. Katakana is simply an alternative phonetic set. Yeah, you're learning more unique characters than you'll need for English or most of the European languages, but big deal.
You can write anything in Japanese with hiragana or katakana. Kanji are borrowed characters from Chinese, and have a few difficulties. First off, most kanji have multiple readings, so even if you know what the character means, you may still "say" it wrong. This means that you're basically stuck just memorizing the character and its readings. Obviously, this becomes easier once you see them in use.
High school seniors are expected to know the basic set of 1500 characters. This is what you will need to be able to read a newspaper as well (as compared to the US where our newspapers are geared towards 8th graders...)
College undergraduates are expected to learn an additional 500-1000 characters, based on their area of study. If you're going for an advanced degree, you can expect another 1 or 2 thousand more characters - again, based on your area of study. I've met Japanese who have studied medicine and know over 5000 characters.
Getting back to comics... There are comics for all different age and interest groups. Comics aimmed at younger readers will include small hiragana characters next to more advanced kanji to help the reader (this writing is called furigana.) However, comics aimmed at older readers, say college-aged or older, will contain *no* furigana unless it's a really rare reading or word.
While it does take some getting used to, I find that I can read much faster in Japanese than I can in English. This is partially due to the use of kanji, which condenses many words down into 1-4 characters.
And, yes, there have been studies conducted on this. People who are fluent in multiple languages were found to be able to read material faster in Japanese or Chinese, than English. One reason is the sheer number of characters each language uses in its writing.